Harrington targets more majors

But first he plans a massive knees up to celebrate a victory he has dreamt of since he was a kid.

He said: "My goal was always to win more than one major. If I ever crossed that threshold to win one, I wouldn't feel like that was the end of my road.

"It was always very important for me to have that goal. Now that I've won one, I'll try to win another, rather than feeling that this was the pinnacle.

"I'm going to celebrate like it's the pinnacle, but my attitude is, look, I've got other goals now to move on with.

"I'm certainly going to enjoy this one as it is, for the foreseeable future. Forever, actually."

The final round was a roller-coaster of emotions for Harrington who never once felt that everything was going his way.

He said: "I holed a good putt on 10. But besides that, nothing happened in the round that was saying to me 'This is my day'. I had a number of putts that sat on the lip. A number of putts that were ever so close.

"Normally when it's your day, you chip in, you hole a long putt. None of that was happening."

Things started to turn for Harrington when his approach to the par-five 14th kicked down off a bank and finished just 14 feet away - setting up an eagle chance he grabbed with both hands.

He said: "I got a very good break on 14. I assumed my ball kicked just left of the green up there, I thought I was going to be like 30 feet away from the hole. Instead I was 15 feet away with a great chance. That was a big break to hole that.

"Again, at no stage besides that one putt there did I feel like, hey, everything is going my way today. I hit a great putt on 16. That was probably an alarm bell to me.

" I hit a lovely putt from about six feet. It's missed on the high side at a dribbling pace. Things like that are not a good omen for today."

Harrington felt the key to his victory was his up and down to save double bogey on the 18th in regulation play.

He said: "I though, look, if you get into this, you have a chance. I sat and watched Sergio play the last. His putt was incredibly unlucky to miss. I'm sure he thought he had holed it.

Me having made a good up and down at least made a positive for me to go out in the playoff. I knew I played well all day and it was just a question of getting back into that frame of mind."